Chapter 152: Robin Sloan weaves wonder and weirdness into the warbly world of words
Release Date: 09/07/2025
Chapter 42: Molly Bloom on poker princess privileges and pushing past pomposity
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
Join me on the couch in Molly Bloom's hotel room at the Four Seasons in downtown Toronto. Molly began her career as a world-class skier, but while training as a pre-teen was diagnosed with severe scoliosis. Her doctor told her she could never ski again, but even as a pre-teen Molly had incredible strength of mind and she ended up back on the slopes only a year after her surgery. By age 21, she was ranked #3 in North America. She then took off to LA and began running one of the most exclusive, high-stakes, underground poker games in the world, featuring players like Alex...
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Chapter 158: Sonja Lyubomirsky helps harness happiness by honing hearty habits
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
is one of the most influential happiness researchers of our time. Sonja moved to the United States from Moscow at age 9 in the 70s. She went to Harvard and Stanford in the 80s and began studying happiness in 1989 ... longer than almost anyone else alive! Positive psychology wasn't "founded" by and for another decade. Sonja has published hundreds of papers including her which defined the field by flipping a long-held assumption on its head: That happiness doesn’t follow success but causes it. Sonja is now following up her bestsellers '' and '' with a new book called '', a joint...
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Chapter 40: Comedian Pete Holmes on infinite infinities and the insanity of is-ness
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
A few years ago I was in LA and I went with my friend Chad to a "Judd Apatow and friends" comedy show where I was blown away by the lineup he brought out. Ray Romano! Zach Galifianakis! And, of course, the incredible Pete Holmes. Pete was my favorite comic that night. I have loved his comedy for years! And his book '' was a wonderful read. My parents are Hindu but I grew up in the secular suburbs of Toronto being exposed to many different religions. Pete was very religious, and then wasn’t, and now is again ... in this thoughtful, examining, spiritual way. His book, which is essentially...
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Chapter 157: Paul Hawken junks jargon to jolt generations
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
Paul Hawken is a brilliant thinker, author, activist, and elder who masterfully distills wisdom about our planetary home. I remember hearing Paul's 2009 commencement speech called "" where he said "You are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on Earth at a time when every living system is declining and the rate of decline is accelerating." Paul is the author of nine bestselling books including '', '', and his latest book ''—an incredible book that came out in 2025 and masterfully distills endless planetary wisdom into simple truths we all need to hear. (I...
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Chapter 38: Ryan Holiday bashes beachy books and builds a balanced base
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
Thirteen years ago I was surfing online when I stumbled on a blog post called “” by someone I'd never heard of named Ryan Holiday. I started reading the post and got sucked in. He had a point! Many great points, actually. And he was young. 26 years old! A 26-year-old young man telling the world to read more books? In an era where most twenty-something men read, uh, none? I found Ryan to be a breath of fresh air. I immediately began to copy everything he did! He launched a . I launched a ! (With his blessing, of course.) He was talking about reading fifty then a hundred and then...
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Chapter 156: Salim Amin chronicles courage and compassion in crisis and conflict
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
Africa is the world's second largest continent—by land and population! One and a half billion people spread across fifty-five countries. It's huge! Even a trip there, even many trips there, can only scratch the surface. But we're trying! My mum was born in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1950, and I recently returned from my first journey to Africa where I met incredible people and heard remarkable stories. In this third African chapter of 3 Books I sat down with Salim Amin where we discuss what it means to be a great citizen in the world today and how leading with compassion and curiosity...
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The Best Of 2025: Neil Pasricha mines memorable, mind-shifting moments and messages
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
Happy Solstice, everyone! In the northern hemisphere today we have the least amount of daylight of any day of the year. Below the equator it has the most! And as we do every December solstice it's time for our annual "Best Of" episode of 3 Books. 3 Books is our award-winning 22-year-long conversation to uncover and discuss the 1000 most formative books in the world ... 3 books at a time. This year we recorded shows in Nairobi, Ottawa, Del Mar, and even a few on the street ... journeying to collect stories and lessons that can help us all live richer lives of meaning and intention. ...
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Chapter 37: Malcolm Gladwell on strangers, spies, and silencing the system
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
Who we are is a function of where we are. Do you agree with that? Who you are depends on where you are. We’re different people in different places, right? You’re different in the board room than you are on vacation. You’re different with your parents than you are with your kids. I’m different hanging out with Malcolm Gladwell in his West Village apartment than I am sitting in my basement as I type up a little note about it. That theme is one that we get to open up in this chapter of 3 Books with the one and only . I flew down to New York and joined Malcolm at his place where we...
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My Book 'Canada is Awesome' | Full Audiobook
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
This podcast is me reading a little book I put out earlier this year: CANADA IS AWESOME It's an audio book about all the weird, wonderful, beautiful things that make Canada ... Canada. Did you ever notice Canadians speak in the collective? “What do you think of the weather we’re having?” “Shall we grab a Timmy's before the meeting?” “Think we have a shot at the playoffs?” We, we, we. We use the word we so much. Why do we feel like such a collective? I don’t think it’s complicated. I think it’s because we are one. We all toss around half of everything we make into a big...
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Chapter 155: Bulle the Bookseller broadens borders and births bibliophiles
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
We're back to Africa! Last month we kicked off a little Kenyan series on and today I’m thrilled to share another chapter recorded in the heart of pulsing downtown Nairobi in the country's top bookstore. I landed after an overnight flight and immediately filled my belly with fresh samosas, pakoras, curried goat tripe, and fresh tamarind juice ... for breakfast! ... and then, after seeing the city I hopped into a car with Perlexy, who works with our guest in Chapter 104 and current Kenyan Presidential nominee , and drove downtown... We parked the car and met up with Boniface and his son...
info_outlineLast year I picked up a book called ‘Moonbound’ by Robin Sloan and it blew me away.
Reading it was like riding some rainbow-speckled rocket ship where I experienced the bizarre combination of having no idea what was going on while not being able to wait for what happened next.
The book was full of talking beavers. Talking swords! Strange video games. And ever-expanding worlds with wizards, who maybe aren’t really wizards, and oh—it's narrated by a microscopic AI-type chronicler, who’s been in many different lives across millennia and who now sits inside our protagonist’s left shoulder.
The writing was like a jacked up ‘Star Wars’ meets ‘Cloud Atlas’ by David Mitchell featuring Willy Wonka and Mad Hatter types with moments of poignancy dashed in to let us see, and see around, our endlessly twisting lives together. It is a big, loud, cymbal crash of a book so after I was done I reached out to the giant-minded author Robin Sloan to invite him on the show.
Robin Sloan is a writer, printer, and manufacturer—his new 3-word biography!—with three mind-expanding novels including ‘Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore’, 'Sourdough', and, of course, the magical 'Moonbound'.
Robin splits his time between the San Francisco Bay Area and the San Joaquin Valley of California where he (wait for it) manufactures California extra virgin olive oil. He also (yes) prints wonderful zines and sends out a delightfully nerdy newsletter every 29 1/2 days via his website.
Strap in as we discuss social media, AI ethics, childhood obsession, books as technology, olive oil, working with your partner, myths and identity, and, of course, the brilliant Robin Sloan’s 3 most formative books…
Let's flip the page to Chapter 152 now...